Bright Idea: Using Google Docs to Schedule Conferences

Welcome to the Bright Ideas Blog Hop!

This month, I wrote a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Google Docs to easily and painlessly schedule your parent/teacher conferences. 

No more emails back and forth.

 No more reminder notes sent home. 

No more hassle.

I promise! 

Just follow the steps outlined below and you will no longer fear scheduling conferences. 

You do need to create a google drive account, which most people already have anyway if you use gmail or store your files in google drive.

To begin, go to your google drive page.

It may seem like a lot of steps, but it takes just a few minutes from start to finish. Remind the parents that they CANNOT edit the document from their mobile device. I believe there is an app they can download, but I just told my parents to use their computer to edit the schedule.

I hope you enjoyed my Bright Idea!
You can find many, many more ideas by clicking on the link up below! Have fun!

An InLinkz Link-up

Techy Teacher Tuesday

I am linking up with my buddies Katie, over at Queen of the First Grade Jungle, Fern, over at Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas, and Erica, over at Erica's Ed-Ventures. My post is for all of you creative teachers who make products and you want to make a quick and easy, but attractive preview in Powerpoint. Quite by accident, I discovered the "change picture" option, and, ever since, making previews and products got a little bit easier. Here is a picture tutorial on how to make  a new preview using an existing preview.

(Right click on each photo to enlarge them.)

First, open up a preview that you already made.

Then, click on one of the images in the preview and click on "format."

Next, click on "change picture."

Find the picture you want to use in your new preview and double click to insert.

Voila! There is your new image, placed in the exact same spot as where the old image used to be. And, as an added plus, the new image is formatted exactly the same as the old image. Correct size and drop shadow, included! Isn't that amazing. 

Here is a side by side shot of two different previews that I made using the change picture option.

You can use the change picture feature any time you want to change from one picture to another and you want to keep the same formatting. I also use this function when I have a colored image and I want to change it to black and white. I do this when I create a product that has colored and black and white activities. I also use this function to change borders and frames. I love how the formatting stays the same.

I hope I have given you some helpful tips today. I learn best by trial and error. Usually, more error than trial! I accidentally clicked on this helpful feature one day and I've used it happily ever since. Please let me know if you already use this option when creating or if you will use it now. And, if you have other uses for it, please let us all know! Thanks, and, happy creating!